According to PANews, the Bank for International Settlements has partnered with some of the world’s largest banks and credit card companies on a blockchain-based project aimed at revolutionizing global cross-border payments. JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, UBS Group, Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. have all joined the Agora project, which was launched in May.
The full list of private sector participants includes 41 companies, which will participate alongside seven central banks from regions including the United States, the eurozone, Japan and the United Kingdom. Through Agora, the BIS is exploring the creation of an international platform where tokenized assets can be bought and sold using digital currencies backed by participating central banks.
These central banks issue the world's most important reserve currencies. On this unified ledger, investors can use central bank money for cross-border transactions with almost no risk. Currently, the only relatively safe currency is cash, which does not exist in digital form.
